Meralco in talks with Japanese firm for ‘billing system’ tie-up

Manila Electric Company (Meralco) is
in talks with a Japanese billing company for a partnership deal that will
potentially reinforce the domestic utility firm’s services and operations on
its own billing systems.

According to Meralco Senior Vice
President Alfredo S. Panlilio, the company is “initially eyeing minority
equity” in Meralco’s corporate vehicle handling its “Bayad Center” or its bills
payment system.

He did not name the Japanese firm
pending ongoing negotiations. However, it was hinted by other company sources
that it is Densan Co. Ltd., which is a leading integrated payment solution
provider in Japan.

Panlilio said the company has an
electronic commerce (e-commerce) solution where Meralco could benefit from,
especially in improving services to its customers.

“We had a meeting, but it was more
of a top level for now. We’ll create teams to drill down on certain initiatives
like e-commerce, they also have that technology in Japan,” he stressed.

Technology sharing and billing
system processes are the ones explored for synergy that had initially been
discussed by the two companies.

Densan, it was noted, has wide
know-how in data processing, systems integration and software development that
has been underpinning its information technology-based suite of payment
solutions.

For this targeted tie-up, Panlilio
noted that “the longer-term vision is, after our partnership here, maybe we can
bring it to Asia… we can also bring it to Africa.”

He said the prospective Japanese
partner would still have to go back to its board to secure approval before
advancing into firmer partnership deal with the Philippine power utility
company.